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This paper provides an overall look on the diversity of lowland dry grasslands of the western Po Plain, useful to support their conservation and management. Specific aims were: 1) to identify lowland dry grassland-associated plant communities at alliance level, which is useful for their classification under the Council Directive 92/43/EEC, 2) to assess their synecological and synchorological differences, 3) to define the equivalent Directive habitats and their management implications. Seven subareas were analysed: Lomellina, Ticino River, Sesia River, Po River (North), Orba Stream, Scrivia Stream, and Serio River. Floristic-vegetational relevés were carried out considering vascular plant, moss and lichen species. Cluster analysis were performed to syntaxonomically classify them, while statistical tests were performed to characterize them by means of biological life forms, chorotypes and Ellenberg indicator values. Eight plant communities were classified at alliance level and three plant communities were classified at class level. The equivalence with three Natura 2000 Habitats (H2330, H6110* and H6210) was found. Of the 60 studied sites, the 68% are located inside the Natura 2000 Network, while the remnant 31% are located outside. Possible management actions include: cutting of woody species, mowing, sod-cutting, transplants of typical herbaceous species, and ex novo restoration using harvested seeds from donor grasslands.

Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC) is the cornerstone of nature conservation in Europe and is at the core of the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030. There is room, however, for its improvement, at least for northern Italy, where ambiguities in the definition of habitat types of Annex I of the Habitats Directive are not novel and interpretation difficulties have been highlighted. Sharpening the characterization of habitat types represents an opportunity for lowering classification uncertainties and improving conservation success. With the aim to refine the definitions of habitat types and associated typical species of the Habitats Directive, a group of vegetation scientists of the Italian Society of Vegetation Science based in northern Italy made the exercise of finding viable proposals for those habitat types having a problematic interpretation in the Alpine biogeographical region of Italy. Such proposals arise from group discussions among scientists, and professionals, thus offering a shared view. We prepared 9 habitat proposals important for this geographic area. They include new habitat types at the European level, new subtypes within pre-existing habitat types, including some adjustments of the recently proposed subtypes with respect to northern Italy, and recognition of priority criteria for a pre-existing habitat type. With a vision of tailored conservation, our proposals represent a starting point in view of a future update of Annex I. Furthermore, the list of typical species could be useful for preparing expert systems for automatic classification. Irrespective of legally binding solutions in place, we caution these proposals represent relevant baseline conservation indications that local and regional administrations of the Alpine Arch should consider.

Habitat monitoring in Europe is regulated by Article 17 of the Habitats Directive, which suggests the use of typical species to assess habitat conservation status. Yet, the Directive uses the term “typical” species but does not provide a definition, either for its use in reporting or for its use in impact assessments. To address the issue , a n online workshop was organized by the Italian Society for Vegetation Science (SISV) to shed light on the diversity of perspectives regarding the different concepts of typical species, and to discuss the possible implications for habitat monitoring. To this aim, we inquired 73 people with a very different degree of expertise in the field of vegetation science by means of a tailored survey composed of six questions. We analysed the data using Pearson's Chi-squared test to verify that the answers diverged from a random distribution and checked the effect of the degree of experience of the surveyees on the results. We found that most of the surveyees agreed on the use of the phytosociological method for habitat monitoring and of the diagnostic and characteristic species to evaluate the structural and functional conservation status of habitats. With this contribution, we shed light on the meaning of “typical” species in the context of habitat monitoring.